Phonak

Phonak: “Life is On”

Phonak was founded in Zurich, Switzerland in 1947 by a group of French-Belgian investors. Phonak entered the North American market in 1989. THey have been an innovative influence in the hearing aid world, with unique technologies for wireless connectivity, FM systems, CROS technology and pediatric amplification.

Phonak has just released their newest platform, the Audeo B Hearing Aid. The B stands for Belong, which refers to the fact that you can now have the option of choosing a hearing aid with an integrated lithium-ion battery. This battery will have up to 24 hours of charge, 16 hours if you are actively streaming audio from a phone or a TV. If you are interested in water resistance in a hearing aid, they have up'd their game to the highest ip68 rating which means it is water resistant and dust tight. It even survived continuous immersion in water for 60 minutes.

The Belong platform continues to use the Autosense feature Phonak has developed. This operating system allows the hearing aid to sense what environment it is in and automatically switch the settings to maximize hearing and comfort. Hence the term, autosense.

In the fall of 2017, Phonak released the first ever android connected hearing aid. All other manufacturers can connect to iPhones, but Phonak has cracked the code to be able to connect to both Android and iPhone. This means you can stream a phone call from your Android phone into one of your hearing aids. The hearing aid on the other ear will pick up your voice, to stream back to the caller. This hearing aid is called the Phonak B-Direct.

Phonak hearing aids in the Broadmead/Oak Bay Clinics range from $1550 per hearing aid for the B30 models and $2950 each ear for the B90 models. Rechargeable is extra.